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	Gregory Benford

After the accident, private enterprise takes over in the person of maverick businessman John Axelrod, who picks up the pieces of NASA's program and chooses four astronauts -- including Barth -- to make the long journey to Mars, conduct scientific experiments, and return.

They're not the only ones going to Mars, however, and there are of course complications on the way. A hastily-launched Chinese expedition threatens to beat Barth and her companions in the race for Mars, and Mars itself has hidden dangers and secrets.

Even though Mars may be closer than we think, Benford is careful to remind us that it's still an arduous journey, keeping the astronauts on their toes with plenty of physical dangers and equipment failures.

The case for Mars
The Martian Race presents a vivid picture of the model for Mars exploration Robert Zubrin detailed in his book, The Case for Mars. Exploration fans will enjoy the careful presentation of the hardware and procedures used, from the design of the surface rovers to the training simulations to the way dust gets into everything.

Benford also makes good use of Zubrin's proposal of a $30 billion Mars Prize for the first organization that can accomplish certain goals on Mars and return. It's an exciting idea that, in other forms, has led to several great advances in the past -- most recently, in projects such as the X-Prize.

The corporate angle allows Benford -- who seems to have little faith in NASA's ability to get to Mars -- to play up the differences between private and government space ventures. While Benford's NASA is caught in a swap of bureaucracy and multiply-redundant design, Axelrod's Mars mission is free of all of that.

Of course, Axelrod's venture has its own problems. Benford portrays the private space program as media-obsessed, desperate to keep the public's attention in order to please corporate sponsors like the Mars candy company, which designs a chocolate-bar wrapper to commemorate the event.

Even the idea of a Mars Prize reveals some flaws. Not only does Axelrod, determined to make a profit from winning the prize, pinch pennies on Earth, but the Chinese mission is designed to win the race while conducting the bare minimum of science required to fulfill the prize's conditions. Axelrod's cash-lean strategy has dangerous effects, while the Chinese science-lean policy creates its own consequences.

Benford expertly juggles all these elements, which are more than enough to keep The Martian Race interesting.

Unfortunately, he doesn't do nearly as good a job with the characters. As a working physicist, Benford has always possessed special insight into the thoughts and motivations of scientists, but he tends to have trouble stretching that insight into non-scientist characters.

The astronauts of The Martian Race never quite come to life. Even Julia, a biologist, is a thin character outside of her scientific interests. It's not bad characterization, but it never gets any better than average either.

Fortunately, the rest of the book is well above average, and the ideas carry the story. Granted, a lot can change in the next few years, and when we do go to Mars the journey might be very different from the one Benford has portrayed here, but in the meantime The Martian Race is an excellent projection of what the trip might be like.